3rd April 2008
New laws were announced today to reduce tenant and applicant fraud in public housing by improving Housing NSW’s ability to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute fraudulent activity.
Public housing is a scarce and valuable resource and the NSW Government is committed to allocating public housing to those most in need.
These new amendments will:
- Create a criminal offence to provide false information or intentionally fail to notify Housing NSW of changes in circumstances that remove or reduce a person’s entitlement to a benefit.
- Allow Housing NSW to access certain registers (RTA, Maritime NSW, NSW Lands and Office of Fair Trading) for the purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating and prosecuting fraud.
- Permit Housing NSW to recover debts owed by reducing or removing a rental rebate, by enforcing repayment from an adult who is not a tenant but who benefited from public housing.
- Allow for a three month Amnesty to encourage any tenant incorrectly claming a rental rebate to have their circumstances reviewed without fear of criminal prosecution or the need to repay the rental debt.
These amendments will not apply to properties owned by the Aboriginal Housing Office or to Community Housing providers and hardship provisions in Housing NSW policies will continue to be developed to ensure these reforms and penalties are applied in a fair and balanced way.
The Amnesty will be conducted towards the middle of the year with full implementation of the Tenant Fraud initiative towards the end of 2008.
More information is available on the fact sheet Tenant Fraud (PDF file, 345Kb)